Fr. Martin Mangan Papers, 1930s-2010 | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections
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Contact Us About This CollectionCollection Description
Scope and Contents:
Significant portions of the collection pertain to the lockout of workers from the A. E. Staley plant in Decatur, and protests against Staley's British parent company, Tate & Lyle. The collection also documents clashes in the mid-1990s between labor and management at the Caterpillar and Bridgestone/Firestone plants in Decatur. Fr. Mangan was instrumental in establishing Religious Leaders for Justice at A. E. Staley, an interdenominational group of more than 170 members who wrote letters to Sir Neil Shaw, Tate & Lyle's chairman. He also helped to organize the Catholic Labor Conference, a nationwide group of Catholic labor activists which met in Decatur in 1996.
The collection is organized in nine series: Series I. Biographical materials (1958-2001), Series II. Education and ordination (1950-1962), Series III. Parish appointments (1957-1996), Series IV. Decatur ministry and community work (1991-2002), Series V. Homilies (1970-2000), Series VI. Retreats, talks, and topical files (1970-1999), Series VII. Posthumous tributes, awards, and lecture series, Series VIII. Bob Sampson Research on Fr. Mangan (2001-2002, 2009-2010), Series IX. Photographs (1989-2008).
Biographical/Historical Context:
The Very Reverend Martin B. Mangan (1929-2001), a native of Springfield, Illinois, was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest on May 1, 1957. He graduated from Springfield's Cathedral Boys High School in 1947 and attended in turn St. Louis University, the Diocesan Latin School near Springfield, and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois, where he earned a master's degree.
Fr. Mangan was appointed as co-pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Granite City, Illinois, in 1957. He went to Rome a year later to study for a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University. After his return to the United States in 1961, he worked for seven years in the Office of the Bishop of the Springfield Diocese of Illinois. He was then pastor of parishes in Granite City (1968-72), Taylorville (1972-77), Mount Sterling (1977-81), Highland (1981-86), and Tuscola, Illinois (1986-91). St. James Church of Decatur, Illinois, was his final pastoral assignment, where he served from 1991 to 2001.
Starting in the 1960s, Fr. Mangan, known as "Mitz" to his friends, took a special interest in civil rights and social justice issues. Most of the papers in this collection deal with his activism, primarily in support of Decatur-area labor unions.